– Hi, thanks a lot for answering to our questions. How’s everything doing right now in the DEVIlL’s camp?

Hi, and thanks for having us on your fine page! Right now everything is cool and quiet. We came home from the “Til Dovre Faller” festival yesterday, which was a blast. Now we got one more festival, Hammer of Doom 6, before we take a break and really focus on writing and rehearsing for the next album. Now I’ve probably answered several of your later questions, haha!

– You recently released your debut album so, could you please make some history of the band to all those who don’t know about you yet?

Sure! To make a short story even shorter; We’re five old friends, who wanted to start a heavy rock band a couple of years ago. We did so, released a demo, received insane feedback, got signed, toured and gigged a little in Europe, released a 7”, and now released a full album. Which by the way is soon gone on vinyl, so if any of your readers wants the first pressing of that, they should hurry.

 

– Did you pick the band’s name for the darkness your music provides or it doesn’t actually have any special meaning behind it?

It’s not like it came to us in a haze of peyote soul searching. But I think the band name has the classic and dark feel that also our music has. And I like the generic names that doesn’t make you google it every time you need to spell it. I prefer names like Venom, Satan, Pentagram, Saxon, etc. Classic, straight to the point, badass names. Not “Stakkato Satana Sillypants” or something. Even though I just decided to start that one, haha!

 

– As I said, you have recently released your first album, «Time to Repent», how’s been its feedback? Did you expect such good reviews? As for what I’ve read the feedback has been very positive overall.

Mostly it’s been very good! We were hoping for and counting on just over mediocre reviews with a couple of very positive ones, but it has been the opposite. Almost only very decent reviews, and a couple on the poor side. We’re very happy with that, because we realize we’re never gonna be the critics’ pet. We’re far too simple for that. We’re more like Kiss, Ramones or even Sabbath, who never really was critically acclaimed, but still very much loved. So far we’re not critically acclaimed, so we’re pretty much depending on being loved!

 

– And to all those who haven’t had the chance of listening to the album yet; how could you describe it in just 3 words?

Catchy, Classic, Cult. CCC! What a tagline. And you read it first on Queens of Steel.

 

– The album has a general 70’s feeling, it seems like you guys are quite influenced by Rock n’ Roll and Hard Rock from that period, and you have had a production which fits perfectly that sound. How was the production process? It really has a

certain vintage feeling to it.

Yeah, we DO love much of the classic stuff. Me and Thomas are into the stuff all the way back to the 60’s, while the other guys enters the wagon in the early 70’s, I think is fair to say. So when we heard how the music turned out, there was no doubt that we would go for reverb, reverb, reverb. The practical part is quite simple. We use the classic setups. You know, old Ibanez, Gibson, Marshall, no trigging, nuthin’ fancy. Just mics on our every day stuff and straight into a recording. Then we did the mixing and mastering ourselves. It’s a complete DIY product, with the exception of the artwork, which we’ll get back to.

 

– The same with the cover artwork and your logo, both look quite 70’s. Rafał Kruszyk crafted the artwork, could you please shed some light on this? And what could you tell us about the band’s logo? Moreover they both work really good together.

Yeah, we’ve used Rafal for both the single and the album, and hopefully he’ll stick with us also for later. Even though he’s most known for doing death metal stuff, he captured the mood of DEVIL straight away, and I personally think the album cover is awesome. The band logo is made by Kai in the band. He came over one evening and I showed him some thoughts I had on the logo. That was much more Venom influenced, but with a goat and shit. He went home, made ALMOST that logo we’re using now, except the letters were all “sharp” and with straight lines. Like the Raven logo with a goat in the middle, haha. I asked if he were on drugs, which he fortunately was not, and said “think more to Yes or Budgie”. And then the actual logo came back from him after a few days. I was completely blown away! It fucking rocked, and I still thinks it does.

 

– Beside that Rock/70’s sound, when I reviewed your album I also mentioned bands like BLACK SABBATH or PENTAGARAM but what are the band’s main musical influences?

Those two are probably the main ingredients, even though we’re more and more compared to Blue Öyster Cult and Witchfinder General. And that’s nice, but it’s more of a coincidende. We’ve never purposedly been influenced by those. As in life in general, it comes down to Black Sabbath at the end of the day.

 

– And how easy is nowadays to have that «vintage» sound from some decades ago?

Easy as fuck. And you know, shopping for amps is almost as fun as shopping for records, so it’s a pleasant challenge!

 

– What are some of the lyrical ideas covered in «Time to Repent»?

I like to think of the lyrical aspect as storytelling. We’re not here to judge or influence, we want to tell you a story. One day it can be a story about the good, another day about the evil. The third day we could be talking about booze and tits. I like a mix too. Evil tits and good booze! Holy shit. Anyway, we could be writing about anything we find suiting, but we’re never gonna be a political band.

 

– And how was the songwriting process for the album? Was a spontaneous effort?

The songs was written at the speed of red wine going down the day you guys won the world cup. We came up with ideas like that (snap your fingers here, reader), and we took them to rehearsal, altered a bit, rehearsed it and boxed it. We’re still extremely effective, even though we’ve been busy with the album release and live shows the last months. The body of the second album is almost done already. I think I already now can say it will be a bit more epic and a bit more doomy, without losing the catchy and classic.

 

– I mentioned this because I think both vocals and guitars are the «main characters» in the album. Was this some kind of approach you setted before starting the composition?

Not at all. I myself am more focused on Thomas and Ronny (bass and drums) getting the groove on. I think a solid rhythm backbone is extremely important. Just listen to Black Sabbath of course, but also the first Captain Beyond album and Cream. And Zeppeling! JPJ and Bonham. You could win wars with those rhytms! But I think I know why the guitars and vocals stand out for someone. Those are the REAL newcomers here. We’re not great guitarists, and Joakim is very new to singing, so it’s 80% will and soul and 20% technique. And I’m glad it shines through. You know, it was before Ventor learned to play decent that Kreator was at their best.

 

– Anyway in the album we can find tracks off your demo and single. Can we expect new songs for your upcoming album or do you plan including earlier stuff as well?

The upcoming album will be only songs not yet released, unless we decide to do one single from that too prior to the album. No more demos, and the songs from the first demo will not be used. But we got one song, Mother Shipton, that is great single material. Maybe put that out with a cool cover song or something on the B-side.

 

– There are many Doom (and similar) bands coming out lately, but not many of them are hailing from Scandinavia. How’s this cene like around there?

We’re a bit slow here, you know. We didn’t have almost any thrash bands either, until the nineties. And we’re not many people here, so there will never be many bands of one kind, except from black metal. But the scene is small and close. Most people playing know each other, so it’s no problem to team up with a heavy metal band or something less doomy. Trondheim is probably the most exciting city in Norway now when it comes to metal. Both with the Nidrosian black metal scene, but also a few very promising doom bands, such as Resonaut, High Priest of Saturn and Summit. I bet you’ll here a lot from those in the future. Maybe especially High Priest of Saturn, as they are, like us, being very lucky with their style and what people want to hear right now. Resonaut could also be big, but they’re so fucking lazy. TOO DOOM!!!! Summit just released a 3 track demo, and when they get a few things even better, they’ll be up and around. I didn’t think about it before now, but a guy named Andreas Hagen is or has been involved in all three bands. Maybe HE is the doom scene in Norway, haha! No, seriously, High Priest is the brain child of Merethe Heggset. She is the doom queen of Norway before you know it.

 

– Though you guys have a really different style, have usually been compared to GHOST, something I can actually understand because you both are from Scandinavia and seem to share the same influences, moreover both bands have got much attention. Did you expect such a good result? And how do you feel about these kind of comparisons?

At first I HATED the Ghost comparisions. Not because I have anything against Ghost, but because people did that based on that we’re from the same area and have somewhat similar names, and we all listen to Black Sabbath. It’s like saying “Venom? Haven’t heard them, but I’ll take for granted that they sound like Mercyful Fate!” It doesn’t make sense. Now that we’re also much more out there, and people can tell the difference, I think it’s cool to have them there for measurement. If we were to be so lucky and be as big as them, I’d love a good old race. Who didn’t enjoy it when Mötley Crue and Guns ‘n’ Roses always tried to be bigger, cooler and badder than the other one? But we’re not by any means up there. There’s also other bigger names in the genre on their way up still, such as The Devil’s Blood, Blood Ceremony and Graveyard.

 

– Some months ago you played such a well-known festival as Hole in the Sky, how did that go?

Very well! It was a great honour to get to play the last edition of HitS alongside great acts like St. Vitus. And we’ve been going there every year anyway, so we felt it was kinda personal when it was the last year. Too bad. I hope someone can pick up the glove and do something similar. I have high hopes for the “Til Dovre Faller” festival. That is one mad guy up in the Norwegian mountains that this weekend had the following bill on a 100 people venue: Ghoul Cult, Devil, Lobotomized, Maim, Black Magic (the next big thing from Norway!), Diskord, Execration, Age of Taurus and Koldbrann. Imagine how to do that calculation with 100 tickets and the closest big city a 4 hour drive away! Haha, some people should be locked up. I hope he becomes PRESIDENT OF HEAVY METAL in Norway. I wanna go there till I’m 80. ALL HAIL MORTEN THØRING!

 

– And do you plan having some touring to support your album on stage?

Probably not. We’re busy with jobs, kids, other bands, etc. So we’ll focus on song writing for now, and do the occational festival. That’s perfect for us. We can’t make any money on the band, so we’re not forced to tour. But we’d go to a lot of festivals anyway, so if we can play there as well, it helps our festival budgets. After all, we’re metal fans. And metal fans goes to festivals.

 

– Finally, what can we expect form you in a near-future? What does future have in store for you?

Until spring you shouldn’t expect anything, really. It’s been a quite busy year, and we got some catching up to do, both on the personal side with the families, and when it comes to song writing for the second album. But we’re probably kicking off next year around the Roadburn gig, and hopefully we’ll be at quite a few festivals from then till the end of the summer, and if we’re lucky, we’ll release the second album then.

 

– That’s all from my side, thanks again for taking your time. If you now want to add some final words, feel free to do it.

The pleasure was all ours! Keep up the good work, and farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain. (If you didn’t get it, watch JAWS!)

Tania Giménez

tania@queensofsteel.com

 

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